


DEAD END

by endlessnepenthe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (spoiler: it fails), Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse (Supernatural), Angst, Angst and Feels, Camp Chitaqua (Supernatural), Canon-Typical Violence, Croatoan Virus (Supernatural), Endverse Castiel - Freeform, Endverse Dean Winchester - Freeform, Everything Hurts, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Hurt No Comfort, Lucifer Possessing Sam Winchester, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Violence, angst with a capital a.n.g.s.t, but I think we already established that, extremely unhealthy ways of deal with grief and loss, see Cas is presumed dead because of the suicide mission but what if he survives it?, trigger warning: attempt at suicide, way too much drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-01-07 23:44:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21226223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlessnepenthe/pseuds/endlessnepenthe
Summary: His name is Castiel. The year is 2014.Castiel follows Dean Winchester’s instructions. A loyal dog to the end; it’s all he has left. It’s all he knows. Dean is no longer the man Castiel knew and it hurts something fierce, but he has long since given him everything: his heart, his life, his soul. So Castiel dutifully follows instructions from a broken man and charges head first into the suicide mission.This is his story.





	1. Little Bird, Where Are Your Wings?

**Author's Note:**

> because I haven't written angst in a lONG time so I guess it's time for pain

Around him rifle and semi automatic gunfire rages on, ringing loud and startling in his ears, many times faster and more destructive than the singular handgun he’d brought.

Under strict orders thick with an underlying current of panic and desperation, he stayed behind in his cabin for most missions like a dutiful housewife waiting for their husband to return, burying himself in women and drugs to distract from the knowledge that any single one of the missions may easily go wrong. Thankfully none of them had, and this is practically the first action he’s seen in a _ long _ time.

He cradles the gun in both hands, holding it steady and shooting exactly as he was taught: brace for recoil, elbows locked, quick and merciless shots one after the other, aiming for the chest area unless target is close enough to shoot for the head without risk of wasting bullets by missing. When the clip is empty, he throws the gun to stall for a brief moment, just enough time for him to drag out the triple edged blade he had thought to hide in his jacket at the last moment before they’d left the camp.

This is familiar. The handle is a firm unyielding solid weight pressed to his palm, the blade singing a lethal song as he swings it through the air. He slashes downward with practiced fluid movements, carving easily through the thin flesh of necks and more stubborn material of clothes. His body remembers — even if it has become weaker and frustratingly close to mortal — the soldier days and the Croats don’t stand a chance; they attack based purely on animal instinct, stupid and primitive in comparison to the cold calculating brilliance of the angels he used to battle and lead his Garrison against.

It’s not too bad — he’s making steady progress through the enemy ranks — but he does fall a few times, nearly knocking the breath out of his own lungs whenever he trips on a motionless dead body or slips on something or gets bowled over by the occasional aggressive Croat that manages to catch him off guard. Each time he peels himself off the floor his increasingly battered body protests, pain flaring blindingly bright like fireworks through his nerves. He already knows he’s going to bruise all the multiple colours of the damn rainbow; why are human bodies so _ fragile? _ At least his jacket is tough and thick enough to ward against clawing fingers.

After what seems like years, he yanked his blade out of the last one, straightening up to deafening silence and bodies strewn all over the floor. He pivots on his heel, glancing around — what about the others? — with rapidly fading hope. Then something stirs with a low defeated sigh and he hurries over as quickly as he could manage, stumbling every other step, eyes trained on the bodies around him like he expected them to come alive any second and grab for his ankles.

It’s the only female that had joined them on this mission, and although it takes him a second, he remembers her name: Risa. Indescribably relieved not to be the only survivor, he bends over and offers a hand, shoving sweat soaked hair out of his eyes.

But instead of the warmth of a hand, the cold grip of a gun is placed on his palm.

He frowns in wordless confusion, nudging the gun away to pointedly hold out his hand again. The gun is shoved back into his hand.

“No— It’s okay now, you’ll be alright, it’s safe—”

Risa shakes her head, coughing weakly. Only then does he notice her other arm, limp and bloody where it’s resting on the dirty floor.

_ No. _

Something in him breaks as he finally takes the gun. He raises it to her head and his hand trembles so badly he distantly wonders if he could even shoot straight.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers, clutching the gun between his two hands, short nails digging thin crescents into his skin.

She closes her eyes, smiles. “Thank you.”

Gritting his teeth so hard a muscle in his jaw protests, he squeezes the trigger; the gunshot echoes with explosive finality in the silence. He drops the gun so quickly it’s as if firing it had also set it aflame, breathing heavily. It’s not the first time he has had to kill a comrade, but it never hurt this much — like a red hot blade being twisted in his heart, trapped between the bars of his ribcage — back when he was still an angel.

Castiel drags himself out of the carnage in the building with a heart heavier than his limbs, tired and bloody and broken. Weaponless and limping terribly, he stubbornly refuses to stop and catch his breath, because if he does he’ll never get back up again.

Every cell in his body screams for _ Dean, _ because that’s all he has, all he needs, even if Dean doesn’t want him. Not the medication, not the orgies. He had used those as distractions, because the sight of this Dean — irreversibly changed by the need to kill _ his own brother —_ breaks him in ways he could never escape, not unless he was literally out of his own mind.

But when Castiel staggers around the building, he finds a tall figure in a stark white suit standing in the garden, as if waiting for him. He hesitates and for a brief moment entertains the idea of turning around, until he sees—

Instantly disregarding the danger he’s probably in, Castiel moves forward, eyes trained on the shape sprawled on the ground. The closer he gets, the more undeniable the truth is— it’s _ Dean, _ his neck broken and green eyes open but empty and unseeing.

Sam Winchester — _Lucifer —_ stands over Dean’s body with a blank smile, watching with vague interest as Castiel falls heavily to his knees in the dirt. And Castiel can’t stop the stuttering gasps that end in pitiful whimpers from bursting forth, collapsing forward to press his face to Dean’s still chest.

It’s the first time Castiel cries, sobbing so hard he can hardly breathe, and he doesn’t care that Lucifer is there to witness him tearing apart at the seams.

Because his only reason to fight, to live, is _ gone. _

When Castiel carefully takes Dean’s prized handgun from where it’s always tucked into Dean’s waistband and caresses the metal, still warm from Dean’s cooling skin, Lucifer isn’t there. It’s a small mercy. He gently shuts Dean’s eyes, looking down at him through a haze of tears one last time in an attempt to burn those beautiful features into his mind, before he thumbs the safety off.

Castiel curls his hand over Dean’s slack one where it rests in the dirt, closes his eyes, presses the gun to the soft skin under his chin.

It’s another first — and last — when Castiel prays, prays for God to be merciful and allow his wretched soul into Heaven, so that he can be reunited with Dean.

He takes one more breath, pulls the trigger.

The gun clicks. It’s empty.

Castiel laughs, the sound crazed and desperate.

Of course Dean knew he wasn’t going to survive the mission. Of course Dean knew that Castiel would fight tooth and nail to survive, no matter how impossible it was. _ Of course _ Dean would empty his own gun — something that is _ never _ supposed to happen — because he knew Castiel would use it to kill himself.

_ Oh, you can die but I’m not allowed to? _

He kneels in the dirt next to Dean for so long, the sun is rising for the next day. He kneels in the dirt next to Dean, warm tears slipping slowly and silently down his cheeks until he physically can't cry anymore. He kneels in the dirt, even as his knees and legs protest against the inactivity, even as the body next to him goes cold. He kneels, because he doesn’t know what else to do, because his _ reason —_ to get up in the morning, to struggle through each hopeless day, to give his life direction — is a corpse at his side.

Castiel kneels, because this loss? It’s too big. There’s no getting up and moving on, there’s no filling this fresh bleeding abyss in his heart.

He was a bird with broken wings but with Dean, he was free. With Dean he felt like he could fly, wings or not.

But without Dean, the world is his cage.


	2. Broken Wings Don't Fly

Castiel gives Dean a proper hunter's funeral.

He doesn't cry, anymore.

Something in him burns along with the body.

The sun sets. And rises.

Sets.

Rises.

Sets.

Rises.

Sets.

Rises.

Sets.

Rises.

Days pass, just like that.

He doesn't bother to keep track.

He _ can't _ keep track; sometimes he's so drunk, he can't tell if the sun is up or not.

For a long, unknown stretch of time, Castiel drinks. He drinks everything he could get his shaking hands on, all the different kinds of alcohol Dean had carefully accumulated and stockpiled.

Castiel gives up on drugs. They remind him of slightly better times, when he lost himself in order to find Dean; because Dean will — _ would, _ Castiel corrects himself, and it hurts something terrible — always find him, give him purpose. But Dean is gone.

No matter how lost Castiel is, he'll never be able to find Dean again.

Because Dean— Dean is _ dead. _

So he drinks.

\---

The sun sets for the umpteenth time, a detail he doesn't care enough to observe.

It must be some tiny lingering spark of his grace; somehow, no matter how much alcohol he consumes, his body forces him to reject any dangerous amounts of excess.

Fortunately for him, he can still get drunk enough to not know what's real and what isn't.

It had taken him this long to muster up the courage to drink with abandon. The first few days, he'd stopped at the very first hints of plain drunk, a part of him worried someone — _ Dean _ — would appear to berate him.

Now, the realization cuts deep.

He's well and truly alone.

No one will gruffly tell him he needs to stop. No one will drag him upright with strong yet gentle hands, push him into bed. No one will complain but still sit by him for most of the night until he's finally asleep. No one will be angry at him for being so careless with his life.

No one will care whether he exists or not.

So he drinks.

\---

He finds out he can actually drink enough to pass out when he blinks his eyes open and finds himself sprawled out on the floor, his neck and shoulder painfully stiff from the awkward position. Even his hip protests when he drags himself upright.

It feels like he’d died for a period of time and was forcefully dragged back into the realm of the living against his will.

Castiel stares blankly at the thick fabric draped haphazardly over him, then at what had once been Dean’s bed a good distance away, now missing the blanket.

Something sparks briefly in the murky mess of his intoxicated thoughts like a dying firefly, but it’s gone even faster than it had barely appeared.

He lays off the alcohol for a while after, only having enough to be sloppily tipsy. Enough to temporarily dull the pain.

Still, he drinks.

\---

The discovery of his immediate dislike for the feeling of hunger so intense it's practically pain nearly floors him.

Hunger isn't a new sensation for him. No, it's been so long since he’d been blessed with the sensation of a full stomach.

But to have an empty one for days?

That is new, and Castiel doesn't like it at all.

He nibbles halfheartedly at a few dry crackers, just enough to smooth the jagged edges of furious hunger gnawing at his insides.

Then, he drinks.

\---

Castiel doesn't even know if there are any people out there who _ aren't _ already infected and turned into Croats.

They might even find him, holed up in this abandoned camp, so drunk he probably couldn't defend himself even if he tried.

Castiel can't find it in himself to care.

He drinks.

\---

It’s a good whiskey. Deep and rich flavour, probably been sitting around for a least a few decades. After Castiel’s first cautious sip, it had scorched a blazing trail down his throat.

Now, he hardly feels the burn, even when he takes ridiculously huge gulps like it’s just water. Distantly, his brain partially registers his eyes seeing the liquid level in the stout glass bottle dipping dangerously close to empty.

He grabs for the bottle.

Misses.

Why had he put it down in the first place?

Castiel blinks blearily at the three bottles swimming in front of his eyes. Squinting, he reaches out again.

Another miss, but as he’s withdrawing his hand, the backs of his fingernails graze smooth glass.

Oops. Grand miscalculation. At least he knows where it is now.

This time for sure.

He goes for it—

And confidently closes his hand around thin air.

Castiel frowns at the nearly empty bottle.

It’s sitting just out of his reach; he knows it had been well within grabbing distance mere moments ago.

He doesn’t think he’d been the one to knock it a few inches away. Had he?

_ That’s enough. _

“‘kay,” he slurs without thinking, slumping forward on the table.

He’s tired. So tired.

When Castiel falls asleep seconds later, he dreams.

_ Lay off the drinking, Cas. You got a life to live. _

He drinks only two beers — ironically, the brand Dean seems, _ seemed, _ to favour, when he’d been… — in the time it takes the sun to rise again.

\---

Time blurs.

He doesn't know how long it's been.

It feels like forever.

Every moment feels like an eternity, stretching far and wide and endless in front of him.

It isn't any different from the time he spent as an angel with no definite lifespan.

And yet, it's infinitely worse.

Castiel drags a hand down his face. Feels the beard he's starting to sport, no longer anything near the controlled stubble he'd previously maintained.

He closes his eyes and drinks.

\---

He remembers having witnessed Dean’s grief and frustration and desperation manifest itself as explosive anger. The way all of his repressed negative emotions came flooding forth like a dam had broken, channelled straight into physical violence.

Castiel had never really understood the point. Perhaps it was an instinctively human selfish desire to balance give and take; eye for an eye, breaking something outside for something breaking inside.

So when he hesitantly but purposefully pushes an empty emerald bottle off the edge of the table and silently watches it shatter, he tells himself he’s trying to understand. And maybe it’s because he’s practically human, maybe because he’s drunk; something in him breaks into glittering shards along with the glass.

Anger builds in Castiel, easy as a wave swelling in the ocean and just as destructive.

He’s angry at everything, all at once. The wretched world, for quietly allowing itself to be consumed by the Croatoan virus. God, for playing with lives like they’re part of a cruel game of creation, for sitting back and not doing anything even as his creations suffer. Lucifer, for being a petulant _ child, _ hell bent on causing destruction out of pure spite. Sam, for saying yes to Lucifer, for being weak and giving in, for abandoning Dean to a fate that would leave him broken for the rest of his life. Dean, for being a person Castiel never knew he needed, for becoming someone Castiel could barely recognize, for dying because he couldn’t kill Lucifer. But most of all, he’s angry at himself, for not being _ enough, _ for being too weak and too late to save Dean, for falling apart so easily, for being useless, for always _ failing— _

So furious he’s nearing vengeful, Castiel throws empty bottles against the walls around him with all the strength he could muster. He crushes all the empty cans between his hands, smashes the few wooden chairs until they’re reduced to jagged scraps of wood.

Castiel stands in the center of the threadbare room, panting heavily with wet eyes. It looks like a tornado had gone through the space. Strangely enough, he doesn’t feel regret; for the first time in a long while, his head is clear, the debilitating crushing weight of his grief made somewhat manageable.

Reveling in the way he could finally breathe without feeling like he’s a step away from suffocating under all the pain, Castiel doesn’t feel the cut on his palm until he closes his fist and digs his nails straight into it, blood oozing between his fingers. Straightening his hand, he presses gently at one edge of the gash, hissing softly at the sharp bite of pain singing through his nerves.

“Hurts,” Castiel mumbled under his breath, mildly grateful for the alcohol in his system working hard to dampen the vicious sensations of such wounds.

He would later brush it aside as a figment of his drunken imagination, but in that moment, Castiel swears the temperature around him dips gently — maybe half a degree or so, just barely noticeable — to the faint sound of an airy huff.

\---

The sun rises.

It’s the worst hangover he’s ever had. Arguably, it’s Castiel’s first hangover and of course it has to be an extreme of epic proportions, but that’s not the point.

Point is, he’s sober. And clean — no drugs! — but he’s already been skipping the addictive foreign substances for some time, had swapped them for alcohol.

Castiel spends his first day sober in (what used to be) Dean’s bed, sleeping off his hangover and the side effects of suddenly going cold turkey. He makes sure to drink some water every time he wakes, even gets himself to eat a little bit.

By the time his headache recedes completely, it’s dark. He has a lighter in his pocket, but he doesn’t bother. There isn’t much to do at night, anyway; better to lay low and take the extra time to rest.

Castiel sleeps.

\---

He dreams of Dean.

Of _ hurting _ Dean.

Feeling fragile human bones crack under his hands.

Inhaling the distinct copper scent of blood, so thick in the air, he could practically taste it coating his tongue in deep crimson.

Hearing involuntary groans of pain followed by small punched out whimpers.

Seeing unfathomable green eyes, glossy with shock and agony, soft with pleading.

He screams even as he watches himself laugh a dark sound and settle a deceptively gentle hand around Dean’s neck.

_ Cas! Hey— Cas, wake up! _

Castiel wakes with a strangled gasp caught in his throat. Swallowing hard, he raises shaking hands to his face, certain he would see them stained red. They’re not; even the bandage wrapped around one of his palms is a clean unblemished white.

It takes him a few moments to convince his body to relax, many more to finally sit up.

“...Dean?” His voice is a crackling croak, thin and fragile with lack of use.

His legs are tangled in a tight cocoon by the blanket but he folds them up and hugs them close anyway, resting his chin on his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to the empty room, eyes closed.

There’s no response.

He hadn’t been expecting one.

After shaving clumsily and inhaling half a box of crackers with a can of fruit, surprised by how _ hungry _ he is, Castiel collects the last few remaining empty bottles from Dean’s room. He’s unspeakably relieved he’d been in a different room during his surrender to the outburst of violent intent.

The bottles are placed in an empty milk carton crate Castiel finds; he brings it with him to the armory — where he grabs a black handgun and a box of ammunition to fill the magazine — and then to the largest building.

He sets the bottles along one wall of the empty meeting hall, striding confidently to the opposite side. The gun is loaded with fluid practiced movements and pointed readily at a target in mere seconds.

Castiel aims, gives himself a single breath, fires.

Glass shatters.

The shot echoes in Castiel’s ears as he flinches, fingers reflexively tightening around the gun to avoid dropping a loaded weapon. All he can see is Risa, dead on the floor, because of a bullet _ he _ had fired through her head.

But he’s moped and mourned enough.

It’s time to move on.

Nothing will change if he stays still.

So Castiel raises the gun again.

He grits his teeth and squeezes the trigger.

Until each bottle is a little mound of broken glass, until there are no more bullets in the gun and his eyes are damp with tears he refuses to shed.

Dean would have been proud.

\---

Castiel then spends the next eight days restoring the Impala, working diligently through the hours of daylight.

It had always caused an ache in his heart, seeing the once beloved vehicle abandoned and left to the elements in an overgrown corner of the camp.

He tries his best with the memories he has of Dean repairing and cleaning her, back before the outbreak. Dean used to use such a _ soft _ low voice to croon senseless reassurances and tender apologies to his Baby, whenever he had the time to repair her wounds and deep clean her interior. Castiel misses those times, misses Dean.

His limited knowledge means he can’t do much beyond clearing the Impala of dirt and surrounding weeds, but he does polish her exterior until it gleams, even spends many hours physically pushing the car out of the ditch it had been in and into the vehicle garage.

Right from the start, Castiel knew he couldn’t hope to drive the Impala, no matter how much he wanted to. The engine would be a reassuring sound reminding him of Dean, but it’s far too loud in a world requiring silence (unless you would like to be constantly swarmed by Croats). Plus, Castiel couldn’t find the keys; he doesn’t even know if the Impala would start even if he _ did _ have the keys.

Something in him breaks a little to leave Baby behind. He pats her hood fondly, murmuring his despondent regrets for being unable to bring her along, and wonders if Dean would forgive him.

Castiel packs the trunk of the Jeep Dean had taken on missions: rifles and other guns from the armory, heaping boxes of ammunition for all the firearms, tubby refillable containers of gasoline, stacks of all the nonperishable food he could find in the camp. He even digs around until he finds a half used can of black spray paint, painstakingly copying the demon proofing symbols under the Impala’s trunk lid onto the Jeep’s. Just in case.

Tucking his handgun — safety on, of course — into the back of his jeans, Castiel shoves a machete and an iron crowbar into his duffle amongst the clothes. Some of them were his own, accumulated during his time spent essentially human, but most of them were Dean’s. He double checks his pockets for the two switchblades, lighter, little container of salt—

When Castiel slowly opens his hand, a cold band sits on his palm. It had belonged to Dean; before that, Mary. He doesn’t remember exactly how it had ended up in his pocket — he must’ve been drunk out of his mind — but now he has it, and he knows he has to hold onto it.

As the ring is nestled back into a pocket, the patch of fallen leaves next to him swirls upward, caught in a brief breeze. They drift forlornly back to the ground with nothing to keep them up in the air.

Castiel shivers, climbing into the Jeep.

He drives out of Camp Chitaqua and doesn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> might mess around and write an extra chapter about Cas' first solo encounter with some Croats, idk


	3. Spread Your Wings

Castiel pivots around, pointing his guns in opposite directions and firing simultaneously.

The kickback doesn’t phase him anymore, not after the first handful of shots. At first he had hesitated, unwilling to shoot humans; his left shoulder throbs with every movement, a constant reminder and consequence of his mistake.

He shoots fast and confident — Castiel doesn’t have the time for pausing or doubting — to keep the Croats at bay, not allowing them to advance into the few yards of distance he carefully maintained between them and himself. All too soon, one of his guns clicks when he squeezes the trigger; it’s empty.

Castiel should have realized firearms run out of ammunition much faster than anticipated. However, it’s not the time to be worrying about having forgotten to carry extra magazines for reloading, because the Jeep is much too far away to make a run for it.

_ This mistake will most certainly never occur again. _

Dropping the empty gun to the floor with a dirt muffled clatter, Castiel uses a foot to nudge it along as he slowly retreats backwards. It would be bad if he was boxed in a corner with nowhere to go, but he also couldn’t afford to be completely surrounded; not when he didn’t have anyone to watch and cover his back. Castiel manages to fire a single shot before the half dozen Croats left are charging forward in a wave of outstretched arms.

Pulling out his angel blade, he widens his stance slightly and braces for battle. Just as he’s feared, Castiel’s quickly surrounded, but he’s experienced in this form of combat, ducking and twisting away from grasping hands and clawing fingernails. He’s grateful for his leather jacket, thick and tough, providing no handhold for grabbing. It’s easy for Castiel to slip out of reach, ruthlessly slashing his blade through throats and major arteries as he goes.

He’s relatively unscathed and facing down one more Croat when he hears snarling behind him. Instinctively, he just knows: he’ll be a moment too late even if he turns right now. Castiel spends a precious bullet shooting the one in front of him and whirls around, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders up to minimize the possibility of being scratched or grabbed by the throat.

As he turns, Castiel catches sight of the two Croats being flung away from him out of the corner of his eye. Utterly unaffected by being thrown against the wall, they wobble upright and scramble for Castiel again.

Flipping his angel blade around, Castiel whips it to sink — blade first — in the chest of one of the Croats. “Dean,” he calls with calm certainty, firm and steady, even as he raises his gun and shoots the other.

The Croat drops to the ground as Dean flickers into view.

“Hey Cas,” Dean casually greets, hands in his pockets.

Castiel bends to pluck the empty gun off the ground, tucking it back into the holster he has strapped around his thigh. He reclaims his angel blade, wiping it clean on the Croat before placing it back in his jacket. The other gun is twirled once, safety flicked back on even before it completes one rotation in Castiel’s hand.

“You shouldn’t be here, Dean.”

**Author's Note:**

> ( [Talk to me on tumblr !](https://endlessnepenthe.tumblr.com/) )


End file.
